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Generally speaking, Shannon McCormick loves fruits and vegetables, and wants to pass her
preference on to her 4-year-old.

Her resolve is tested, though, when she encounters her plump red nemesis: the tomato.

“Tomatoes are my kryptonite; I hate them,” said McCormick, of Columbus. “My daughter loves them,
and I don’t want to even suggest that they’re anything less than delicious.”

That’s why she choked down a chunk a few months ago when her child held it to her lips.

“I just sat there and looked at her and thought, ‘Well, I just have to do this,’” McCormick
recalled. “I swallowed it whole.”

Parents, of course, are people, too.

Kids should remember that as they get older and start learning about the little things that
their parents hid from them for the greater good — or for their pleasure alone.

Such moments might be considered great family stories. But whether the children want to carry on
the time-honored tradition of hidden vices and small deceits in parenting is up to them.

“I’ve been hiding Twinkies under the front car seat since my first kid was in diapers,” said
Genevieve West, a stay-at-home mom of three in Portland, Ore. “Now that she’s 12, my husband and I
hide all evidence of our Starbucks trips or Thai takeout so we don’t suffer her wrath.”

Fast food was also a problem for Katrina Olson in Urbana, Ill.

“My husband abhors it, so, when our girls were toddlers and wanted to go to McDonald’s, we told
them it was closed for cleaning on Tuesdays or Thursdays, or whatever day it happened to be,” she
said. “It worked for several years.”

The girls are now 10 and 12, and their parents have other secrets. One involves Whiskers the
cat.

When the sisters were about 18 months old and 3, they picked out Whiskers at a shelter. The
family had to wait three days before picking him up once he was neutered.

That’s when Olson’s older daughter stated her preference for a female pet.

“My husband and I discussed it and decided we would just tell them it was a girl, so Whiskers
has spent most of his life wearing girl doll clothes and pink bows,” Olson said. “When the girls
accompanied me to a vet appointment, I called ahead and requested that they refer to Whiskers as a ‘
her.’”

About seven years later, her older daughter started thinking that something was amiss.

“She tells me she thinks Whiskers is a boy,” Olson said. “I feign ignorance. She’s almost 13,
and I still haven’t told her the truth.”

Elisabeth Wilkins in Portland, Maine, is the editor of Empowering parents.com, dedicated to
helping parents change their children’s questionable behavior.

But Wilkins is also a third-generation chocolate hider.

“My brother and I would find it in the coat closet or the back of the freezer,” she said. “My
aunt had a very sensitive nose and was able to sniff it out.”

Her son is 11 and inherited that sensitive nose.

She and her husband aren’t so strict as never to allow their offspring a bite of chocolate. She
just wasn’t sure she wanted to reveal how obsessed she is — and she wanted to reserve the good
stuff for herself.

“Sometimes I go into the bedroom and shut the door for like a half-hour and have a little bit of
chocolate; then I’ll go rinse my mouth out,” she said.

“You feel responsible. You don’t want to teach them bad habits. You don’t want to teach them
your bad habits.”

Eli Federman of Miami Beach, Fla., understands.

He is the co-founder of an online startup that offers flash sales on electronics, but he and his
wife quickly realized that handing over an iPad to their daughter before she hit her second
birthday was a mistake.

“When she was around 1, we bought her the mini iPad,” he said. “We thought, because of the kids
games that are on there and because of the learning apps, she could interact.

“It just got so out of control. Even when she went to sleep, she would request it. She’d be in
the crib, shaking the crib, going, ‘iPad, iPad, iPad.’ She refused to go to sleep without it.”

The couple realized they needed to put an end to the obsession, he said, but wanted the iPad for
themselves.

“We lock it in the chemical cabinet and wait to use it when she’s sleeping or we’re out or
something.”